


Promises Kept

by Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Complete, F/M, Grief/Mourning, One Shot, POV Cassian Andor, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prior hanleia, Slow Burn, major character death is off screen but its MAJOR, prior cassian/jyn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-08
Updated: 2019-12-08
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:35:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21721561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome/pseuds/Pontmercyingtilthecowscomehome
Summary: As the sole survivor from Scarif, Cassian is filled with grief and regret.As the sole survivor from Alderaan, Leia vows to save any life she can.The two will grow and heal, together, though every moment the darkness threatens to consume them.
Relationships: Cassian Andor/Leia Organa
Comments: 4
Kudos: 13





	Promises Kept

Cassian’s life is a tapestry of lies, woven together with secrets. He knows that, after all, in the grand scheme of things, he doesn’t exist, not really. He doesn’t matter. Not to others, not to the Rebellion, and not to himself. That’s the way it must be, for those who do the work he does, for those who fight and lie and kill all in the name of the peace they dream to one day achieve. For those who live in the shadows still dream of the light.

And Cassian’s dreams, ever since Scarif, are full of light.

That was the last thing he remembers, after all. The bright, clean light of a med bay and the soft voice of a woman telling him to relax.

As if he’s ever relaxed for a day in his life.

But she’s a princess, he knows, by the sound of her voice, and princesses live an existence that is probably full of relaxation. Princesses, he thinks, will never know pain and loss like he does. (He will regret this thought, someday, when he learns of what the Death Star has destroyed, beyond just Scarif alone. He will regret the delay in the plans. He will regret everything, every moment, and he will think there is no way ahead.)

He will be wrong, of course, but he does not know that now. All he knows is that a princess like her is made only of the light and has no shadows to name.

But even after Cassian says those things, the princess, with her gentle voice, remains. She asks him if she can help, if he needs anything.

He knows that _needing_ something, anything, is what will undo a spy.

But Cassian knows, too, that lying to himself is more difficult than to anyone else. He’d begun, at some point, perhaps after Jedha, perhaps not, to need. To want. To hope for more than just peace, but for his own personal happiness.

He remembers rattling off the names of his companions.

He remembers sinking once more into the darkness when he hears that none have survived but him.

He remembers little else in those dark days.

Little else except the soothing hand that rests on his forehead and the gentle voice that promises him it will all be all right, someday.

* * *

For ones who fight for the light, the darkness cannot hold. Not forever. Eventually, Cassian’s body heals. His heart takes much longer. In the night, the dark thoughts whisper to him, _you don’t matter. You never did. You are nothing._

In the night, there is light, and even less hope.

While he works on Echo Base, Cassian feels as cold as the ice around him. As frozen as the landscape and as brittle as the words that escape him. Dangerous words, because they are, to him, the truth. He tells her them, one day, when the pressures of the fight have gotten to both of them and there is little light and no love between them.

_“I wish I had died there, instead.”_

But the words do not break the princess, though they are meant to. They’re a dagger, thrown out to wound, because he is so tired of being wounded.

What he doesn’t realize is that the princess grieves, too. She perches on the edge of his desk. “You think I don’t feel the same way?” When he doesn’t answer, she continues. “You think I _wanted_ my whole planet to die so that I could live?”

He shakes his head. Just because he rarely tells the truth doesn’t mean he will not acknowledge it, when it’s spoken.

“I promise you,” she tells him. “You live for a reason.”

Cassian remembers that promise. When the base is detected by the Imperials, when Leia refuses to leave until everyone else is safe, when Captain Solo doesn’t survive his encounter with Vader, and Cassian is the only one who can get the Princess away from the icy world that threatens to become her tomb… he wonders if this was what he was meant to live for.

* * *

He wonders that, every moment, as they soar through hyperspace. Cassian doubts he exists for anything beyond this. All he is, he knows, is a tool to the Rebellion. A tool to bring the fight the supplies, the people, the hope it needs. Is saving the princess any different than saving the Death Star plans?

Does Leia hold those plans against him? If he had been faster, her planet would still exist.

The silence between them grows even colder than Hoth was.

“I promise,” Leia finally says, staring out at the view screen. Cassian isn’t sure if she’s speaking to him, so he merely listens, his heart in his throat. It’s beating again, louder, stronger, than it has since Scarif. He’s living again, he thinks, and hates the fact that only danger makes him feel alive.

“I promise,” Leia says again, “I will not forget the lives lost today.”

He had lost Jyn and she had lost Captain Solo. Both of them, Cassian knows, were people that mattered to so few, and yet, meant the world to those who loved them. For a moment, he imagines them both as stars, floating somewhere in space, providing light to him and to the princess, leading them forward.

Amid all his lies, he had never been able to lie to himself about his love for Jyn. Even if he had never told her, he could only hope she knew, in those last few moments, that she had mattered. That she would always matter to him.

Even if he thinks he no longer deserves to matter to anyone else. He doesn’t deserve to exist, let alone to love.

Leia says, “We will avenge them.”

Her voice holds strength and light and impossibly, it holds truth. His own heart soars. Cassian steps up next to her and his hand rests lightly over hers. “You have my aid, in anything that comes next.”

She rests her other hand on top, trapping his palm between hers. For the first time in longer than he can remember, Cassian isn’t cold.

The darkness grows thicker around them, but there is the promise of dawn, somewhere far ahead. He imagines it as a thread, a single line of pure white light, leading him forward. He imagines it as a gift to them both from the ones they have loved and lost.

For the first time, Cassian imagines a future where he lives and loves and never lies again.

* * *

When Luke falls, though the Jedi remains brilliant, shining in light until the last moment, Cassian wonders if perhaps now, the darkness will win. Could there still be hope, when the Rebellion’s last hope, which rested for so long, on that one young man’s shoulders, is gone? Was this how the fight would end? Not with peace but failure?

It seems that way, as he and the Princess huddle together for warmth on their stolen spacecraft, heading for whatever safe house they can find. Cassian tastes bitter gall at his own failures. He hadn’t been able to save Skywalker. He had failed, again.

How could he ever matter when all he does is fail? What good is the light of a star if it flickers when one needs its brightness the most?

“Tell me something good,” Leia whispers. She pauses for a moment, before adding, “and make it something true.”

Cassian’s life is a tapestry of lies. How could he pull a thread out of the ether that would be only truth and not tainted with the falseness that is required of him? How could he find something good amidst all this despair?

How could anything matter, right now, when nothing seemed to?

Leia leans against him. It’s Leia, and not the princess, now. Perhaps it has been so for a long time. Both of them had started to melt, in the year they have spent fighting the Empire together and yet, so alone. Both of them trusted each other with their lives but never with their hearts. Both of them were liars, though, because neither of them would be the first to say they had begun to care.

Both of them had lost so much and yet both of them stubbornly clung to life.

“You are incredible,” he says, softly. “And you make me want to live so that I can help you do all you dream of.”

The princess turns to him and reaches up, to rest her warm hand on his cheek. “No,” she says. “Live for yourself. You will always matter to me.”

Cassian wonders if it is possible for a man like him to do such a thing. He’s always lived for someone, or something else. What is his own life, if not the means to a greater end?

Leia’s eyes look into his own and in them he sees the light of a thousand forgotten stars. “Cassian,” she says. “Promise me that you will live for for yourself. There will be a day the Rebellion succeeds, a day when we lay down our weapons and walk into the light. Promise me you will be there, on that day.”

Those words should fill him with joy. But he is afraid of the light, of the truth beyond the lies of war. He knows how to fight, how to survive against terrible odds. He is not sure he knows how to live in a time of peace.

Who is he, if he has no mission to complete?

* * *

On Dagobah, her promise is simple. “We’ll stop smelling like mud. Eventually.”

Cassian laughs then, rusty at first, but the sound is heard more often each day, to the delight of both Leia and her teacher.

Because, the teacher explains, if there is laughter, hope there is.

Neither of the two Rebels had ever thought much of laughter before that, though they’d both done a great deal in the name of hope/

Both of them promise, silently, to never forget how the other one’s eyes light up when they laugh.

Both of them make many silent promises, there, on that muddy, forgotten planet.

Neither of them realize that they are both healing. Neither of them see that their tapestries, his of lies and hers of duty, are unraveling. Neither of them know how much they need this time, this training, to shine brighter than they ever have before.

She may be training to become a Jedi but Cassian is training too, though he doesn't truly realize that he is. He trains, each day he cooks dinner, using old family recipes, and each morning when he makes their bed inside the small cottage that has become their home. He trains to become someone who lives each day for the simple pleasure of being _alive._ He trains to no longer be a man made of shadows and lies. He trains himself to again remember those early days with his own family, those days when he only knew love and not fear.

Cassian trains and he heals.

* * *

When Leia picks up that blue sword made of pure light, when Leia steps forward, as both Princess and Jedi, to fight the darkness (for what Cassian hopes will be the last time, though neither of them make that promise) the last of his lies slip away.

She had said one thing before striding up onto the dias to face Vader first, then the Emperor. Just one small phrase, one more promise, before she went to do the impossible.

“Cassian,” Leia had said, with her hands in his and no fear in her voice. “I promise you. I would not be here today if it wasn’t for you.”

Finally, he admits, if only to himself, one small, huge thing. _I matter,_ he thinks. _My life has meaning. Meaning beyond the mission, beyond the Rebellion._

_I matter._

* * *

Afterward, while they sit among the Ewoks, who are all laughing, laughing and full not only of hope, but joy, too, Cassian takes Leia’s hand.

His hands are warm now and his heart beats a steady pace. He knows, now, that he will find a way forward, a new life without any missions, without any more lies.

For the first time, he tells her the truth without her asking. “You know,” because of course she does. She knows him better than he knows himself, in some ways. Because she knew his truth before he was able to live it. “I held each of those promises you gave me. Held them and healed with them.”

“I’m glad.” Leia smiles at him. There’s a light in her eyes he’s never seen before. He hopes it stays. No. He knows it will stay. Cassian makes that promise to himself, that he will become the reason, among others, that Leia will smile like that every day. It’s the first promise Cassian makes that has nothing to do with the war or the fight or the Rebellion.

With that in mind, he clears his throat.“And I’d like to make one more promise to you.”

“That would be a nice change.” She leans her shoulder against his chest, her teasing tone making him smile, at least with his eyes.

“I promise to tell you the truth, from now on. Starting with this. You matter to me, more than anything. I love you.”

The darkness fades, for good, with those three words, leaving even the dreams that will come in the days ahead. It leaves them both, princess and spy, Jedi and Rebel, and together, they walk into a new dawn’s truth.


End file.
